Gowanus Lounge’s Monday post on the weekend demolition derby at the Ikea site was wrong. We predicted all the Todd Shipyard buildings would be gone in a week or so. By the look of things, they could be toast before we fire up the $5.99 hibachi from the Red Hook Fairway for Memorial Day. Gothamist brings us “Demolition Porn” in the form of photos (like the magnificent shot above) shot by blogger extraordinaire Alexis Robie of Lex’s Folly that show the buildings coming down as fast as the Greenpoint Terminal Market (but without the attention-grabbing flames and billowing smoke.)

While we’re on the subject of Gothamist, they’ve got an excellent neighborhood take on the McCarren Pool concert controversy. You can also check out our own McCarren Pool concert posts from a couple of weeks back on GL or on Curbed.

Pick up today’s New York Post and you will find Mary Huhn’s take on Gowanus: It’s hip. It’s now. It’s happening.

Huhn, calls Gowanus “the next hipster haunt,” and even quotes Gowanus Lounge a bit. Going to the copy and paste, Huhn writes:

Though it sounds ripe for a joke (and smells ripe, too), the Gowanus Canal is the next frontier of gentrification – a place where the displaced artists and musicians of Williamsburg and DUMBO already are taking refuge in the refuse…Big developers are poised to change the landscape from a foul-water wasteland into a sea of high-cost residential housing. “It’s not a question of what should or shouldn’t be developed. It will be,” says Robert Guskind, host of blog Gowanus Lounge and contributor to real estate blog Curbed. “The developers clearly think there is significant money to be made, and ultimately they’ll be proven right.”

Huhn offers the following roundup:

Developers Leviev Boymelgreen, who has ground-breaking plans for a 450-unit Gowanus Village, and the Toll Brothers, luxury home builders from Horsham, Pa., already have acquired blocks of property along the canal. Whole Foods is expanding to the neighborhood, although construction on its Third Avenue site has been delayed due to the area’s toxicity. It’s also started the classic New York neighborhood battle – with artists, preservationists, developers and longtime residents battling over the transformation.

The story ends with our own take on the future of Gowanus: “We’ll come back in 10 or 20 years and it will be hard to recognize,” says Guskind. “Will they do it right? That’s the $100 million question.”

The story makes an excellent read. Check it out.

Burn Baby Burn: A Brief History of Fire in New York City is the title of an article in the new issue of L Magazine that follows up on the Greenpoint conflagration with a nicely researched discussion of–what else?–fire (of both accidental and deliberate causes) in NYC. An excerpt:

The Greenpoint Terminal Market fire is but the latest in a long line of enormous fires that have changed the face of New York City over the last three centuries. From the burning of the South Bronx in the 1970s to the citywide conflagrations of the Draft Riots, Gothamites have always had a peculiar predilection for setting things alight—more often than not, just to see them burn.

GL had almost forgotten that New York in the late 70s was the arson capital of the universe, which is why we always appreciate the historical perspective. Kudos to justiNYC for blogging it and linking to it. (The amazing photo above comes from L, via the FDNY.)

Oh, and while we’re on the subject of L, check out this wonderful appreciation of Frank O.’s Miss Brooklyn, “Bridezilla Hits Brooklyn–Frank Gehry to City: ‘Drop Dead.’” GL never tires of Fill-in-the-Blank to City: Drop Dead headlines or, lately, of love notes to our favorite starchitect.

Many developments in the city vie for Gowanus Lounge’s attention in the “Most Outrageous” category, particularly in Brooklyn, where in some neighborhoods you can hardly turn a corner without your blood pressure spiking. Yet, Williamsburgh Square–the project that a group of well-connected developers would like to build on Bedford Avenue at North Third and North Fourth streets–absolutely wins the prize for the title of super-sized project that would single-handedly destroy a neighborhood. News of the project isn’t brand new, but the proposal is so egregiously offensive that it deserves repeated airings. (Yes, if you’ve been on Bedford Ave. in the last five months, you’ve noticed the land being cleared–the image to the right is what might go there.)

There is no way to overstate the awful wretchedness of Williamsburgh Square. It is nothing less than development pornography, something so graphic that you can see it screwing the neighborhood.

Although a long and very, very nasty battle lies ahead, developers have already cleared half the parcel (which is an entire square block) and are hard at work demolishing the low-rise industrial building occupying the other half. The 675,000- square-foot development would feature four towers of 38, 36, 20 and 12 stories. In addition to housing, there would be a charter school, a daycare center and two floors of retail. The Monster that Ate Bedford Avenue would also include (you have love this) a “semi-public” park and 360 parking spaces! (Nod the community, one supposes, the school and daycare.)

It’s worth remembering that one of the stated reasons for rezoning the waterfront to allow high rises was protecting the low-rise character of the rest of the neighborhood.

You could write this off an Albert Speer/Robert Moses-like exercise in delusional thinking, except that the prime mover behind Williamsburgh Square is former Congressman and Bronx Borough President Herman Badillo, and he has lined up people with significant political juice to stand with him as partners in Quadriad Realty.

One would expect Williamsburg residents to take to the streets to protest this abomination of architecture and planning, and they will certainly have their chance. Getting this puppy built will require a major zoning change, as the property is limited to a maximum of six stories. Hopefully, residents of the Burg haven’t already resigned themselves the nabe’s inevitable transformation into the Next Battery Park City.

First, there was a suggestion to put retail in a re-opened Brooklyn House of Detention on Atlantic Avenue between Smith Street and Boerum Place. Now, Dumbo developer Jed Walentas is proposing knocking down the closed 760-bed Big House and replacing it with a luxury building and a new jail, according to the Brooklyn Paper. Meanwhile, the Department of Corrections is still sorting through proposals for the prime property (Boro Pres. Marty Markowitz wants to develop the property for more than inmates) and looking into plans to reopen the House of D (as a jail), with retail at street level. (The excellent photo of the Atlantic Avenue slam comes from Funtime Ben’s flickr photostream.)

The interest in jailhouse conversions (of the condo kind) is chronicled in a New Yorker column, which offers helpful pointers on how best to convert a jail into luxury housing. (Tip Three: Remove any fixtures that say “penal institution.”) New Yorker also offers this advice, since some lockups are still lockups: “Keep an eye out for prisons with potential, even if they haven’t been vacated. The Bayview Correctional Facility, on West Twentieth Street, for instance, has a rooftop garden, and, on a clear day, residents can see the Statue of Liberty. The Lincoln Correctional Facility, on 110th Street, has an exercise area on the roof with a panoramic view of Central Park.”

Views? Did they say, views?

The Brooklyn College MFA thesis exhibition that was shut down by the Brooklyn Borough Parks Commissioner and then damaged by school employees is reopening tomorrow at 70 Washington in Dumbo in space donated by developer David Walentas. The show is now called “Plan B Prevails,” and will run from May 24-June 16. The student exhibition–which includes art with gay themes–was deemed not “appropriate for families” when it was ordered closed.

Gowanus Lounge admits to being deeply biased against anything that smacks of censorship and to being livid at reports that some of the art was, in effect, vandalized as it was being removed from the Brooklyn War Memorial. We are happy to note that the show is likely to have a far, far larger audience now than it would ever have had if it hadn’t been shut down. Note to censors: If you want to art (or music, writing, etc.) to have a huge audience, then by all means (please, please, please) condemn it, shut it down or otherwise try to ban it. You will only ensure that it attracts a very large audience.

Kudos, then, to Parks Commissioner Julius Spiegel, unlikey hero of art and to the Brooklyn College employees that trashed the art when removing it. GL salutes you!

The show includes new works made in response to the censorship; it is free and is open Wednesday through Sunday from noon to 6 pm. GL looks forward to seeing it.

Just when Gowanus Lounge was bemoaning the lack of alarm about the chance that a hurricane will render the Gowanus Canal an extension of New York Harbor, come the latest predictions of 2006 hurricane activity and word that this is Hurricane Preparedness Week. “Did you know that one in four New Yorkers lives in a hurricane evacuation zone?” notes the NYC Office of Emergency Management. “Hurricanes can affect New York City….Due to regional geography, hurricanes can cause even more damage in New York City than hurricanes of similar strength in the southern U.S. Residents should understand the coastal storm hazards they face and know how to respond. Hurricane hazards include storm surge, high winds and tornadoes.”

One in four of us in hurricane evacuation zones, huh?

OEM suggests finding out if you live in an evacuation zone, having a disaster plan, keeping an emergency supply kit stocked and having a “Go Bag” with essentials if you need to run. (To review, in the graphic above, areas in orange flood in any hurricane, areas in yellow in a Category Two and areas in green in a Category Three or Four.)

Meanwhile, Gothamist summarized survey findings yesterday that say few New Yorkers are prepared. And, AP ran a story that painted a nasty little picture of the sort of thing that might happen in New York City. A couple of choice excerpts:

In 1893, a hurricane came ashore in Jamaica Bay, near where JFK airport sits today. A cluster of saloons, casinos and resort hotels on a sandy spit of land called Hog Island was completely washed away. Even the island disappeared. A few miles west of the hurricane’s eye, almost every building on Coney Island was destroyed. There was extensive flooding in Brooklyn and wind damage to many of the city’s innovative new skyscrapers, including the just-finished Metropolitan Life building. Meteorologists estimate that the 1893 storm was only a category 2 hurricane.

“A 2 in New York City is bad news,” said Nicholas Coch, a professor at the Queens College branch of the City University of New York. “A 3 is a disaster and a 4 is a catastrophe.”

Coch earned the nickname “Dr. Doom” more than a decade ago for his insistent warnings about New York City’s vulnerability to hurricanes. He envisions hurricane-force winds stripping glass, antennas, air conditioning units and water tanks off tall buildings and sending them crashing into the streets. People trying to escape the bombardment by retreating into the subway would soon find the tunnels flooded.

On the bright side, the MTA is drafting a new evacuation plan that will let everyone take their pets on buses and subways in case we have to run for our lives.

Evidence abounds of the spread of retail gentrification south on Fifth Avenue in Park Slope, particularly between Ninth and Fifteenth Streets. Discount retailer Dee & Dee closed down last year and is being replaced by a Bank of America branch (pictured to the right), which is ready to do battle with the Washington Mutual branch across the street that has been open for more than two year. (Do banks get Community Reinvestment Act brownie points for opening on Fifth Avenue?) For evidence of the changing character of the nabe, however, look no further than the spot that was once home to the Salvation Army store at the corner of 13th Street and Fifth Avenue. This is said to be the soon-to-come new home of a Baby Gap.

Gowanus Lounge shot photos of the site last week, but is shelving them in favor of a different photo (to the right) that was posted by the blog Bag of Rocks that, um, speaks to some of the conflicted neighborhood feelings about more chain retailing coming to this part of Fifth Avenue. (There already is some in the form of Foot Locker, etc., but does the Gap provoke more of a reaction?)

“We don’t want no baby gap up in here,” Bag of Rocks writes in a post titled “Also sprach Fifth Avenue” of the spot “where the BG is rumored to be gestating as we speak.”

Several bakeries and other local establishments have also been forced out by rising rents, and one wonders how long other local businesses are going to be able to hang in there, especially as leases expire and rents are jacked up significantly.

Addendum: A reader notes in the comment section that the rumored Baby Gap may be “BS” and that everyone’s being cagey about the identity of the new tenant. One thing we can say with certainty: It won’t be Salvation Army or a 99 cent store. Hmm.

empty vessel panorama, originally uploaded by e-liz.

This panorama which of the Empty Vesel Project boat on the Gowanus comes from a cool set of photos taken on Sunday and posted by Elizabeth Weinberg, aka e-liz, on flickr. The shot is from the foot of First Street at the Canal, where the boat is docked. (It’s best at full size.) The shot below, which we call, “On the Big G” was taken by e-liz inside the boat, which hosts events, classes and workshops every weekend. Check them out.

As noted earlier, Gowanus Lounge hit Red Hook this weekend, and shopping at the new Fairway wasn’t the only thing on the agenda. We had intended to get a look at the state of the ongoing Ikea demolition and were surprised to find it going full swing, even on traditional days of rest. The Brooklyn Rule of Demolition applies here: Get it down as fast as you can, because once you knock it down, no one can stop you.

In any case, the photos show that most of the buildings along Beard Street have been reduced to steel skeletons. The cranes around the graving docks that Ikea will fill in for parking are now visible through the old buildings. Within two weeks, everything should be gone.

Not to bang the Atlantic Yards drum too loudly today (see posting below), but the images below posted on the Brooklyn Views blog in an item headlined “It’s the Scale, Stupid” are too compelling to pass up. They show the view down Fifth Avenue in Park Slope as it currently is and as it would be after the construction of Frank Gehry’s Miss Brooklyn tower. The good news: It blocks the current view of the ugly-as-sin Atlantic Center!

Before:

After:

Gowanus Lounge loves irony, so we were amused by news of an itsy-bitsy (ironic) problem today at the Atlantic Yards site. As Forest City Ratner-Atlantic Yards watchers are well aware, demolition is underway on buildings that FCRC argued in court were “unsafe.” (For non-Atlantic Yards addicts, all you need to know is that–in keeping with the current Brooklyn practice of tearing things down as fast as you can because once you level it, no one can do anything about it–the demolitions are happening far in advance of the project being finalized.) Comes news and photos from Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn that a construction fence blew over in today’s wind at the site of the demolitions of 461 and 463 Dean Street. The stated reasons for the fast-track demolitions: to “protect the public” from “unsafe” buildings.

Gowanus Lounge did what a lot of curious Brooklyn shoppers did this weekend: We went to Red Hook to check out the new Fairway. (And within 90 seconds on the property were set upon by store security asking us to not take photos because the Fairway has a “no pictures policy.” More about that in a moment.) When Fairway opened last week, (official ribbon cutting with Mayor Bloomberg and Boro. Pres. Marty Markowitz was this morning at 10:30) we joked about how some shoppers had nearly been moved to tears and compared it to East Berliners we saw the day the Berlin Wall fell having their first encounters with West Berlin supermarkets. Well, GL admits to spending our first half-hour in the new Fairway with mouth hanging open.

A few points about the Fairway: First, it is phenomenal, with 50,000 square feet of space. “This is the greatest store I’ve ever been in,” enthused one shopper pushing a cart with two little girls riding shotgun.

Second, business is good. There was near gridlock in the parking lot this weekend. Fortunately, the crowd spreads out through the whole store. The scene in the cheese, meat and seafood departments, however, resembled the approach to the Holland Tunnel at rush hour, but with shopping-deprived Brooklynites and shopping carts. (Not pretty. Not pretty, at all.) The bakery department is Darwinian.

Third, on its opening weekend, Fairway drew a wonderfully diverse crowd, with the shoppers ranging from 60-year-old African-American women from Red Hook to 25-year-old yuppies from Carroll Gardens.

Fourth, the management doesn’t like people with cameras, not that you could tell from all the people that photoblogged the store last week. Gowanus Lounge met every manager in the store within our first 45-minutes, because Fairway has a “no photography” policy. (First, airports. Then, the hassles on the subways. Now, supermarkets?) A manager explained that it’s to keep the competition from spying. Nasty little business, supermarkets. (GL was allowed to shoot away after explaining. Over and over and over.) Fun Fairway Idea Number One: Take a camera and take pictures while you shop.

Fifth, the staff took a beating on opening weekend. “I’m going out and getting drunk after we close,” one supervisor was overheard saying into a cell phone. The woman who bagged GL’s groceries joked, “They need to give us some pain killers.”

GL notes that Red Hook has a lot more rules now than in the old days. Even the BWAC art show across the street from Fairway stationed security volunteers on the Beard Street pier to stop visitors from walking around for “liability reasons.”

Ah, the New and Improved Red Hook.

Flowers and Pilings in Gowanus Canal, originally uploaded by rsguskind.

Gowanus Lounge was so shocked to happen upon this wonderful juxtaposition of nature and Gowanus that we probably shot a hundred frames of these babies. The flowers are located at the Union Street Bridge, and they speak to the ability of nature to triumph over adversity.

Below is a lovely photo of the same type of flower taken in Red Hook by Sonja Shield and posted as part of her always wonderful flickr photostream. Sonja did some research and writes “These are Clematis flowers, a native plant which is part of the buttercup family. Supposedly, these are hard to grow. Evidently, this abandoned shipyard has all the right ingredients for them to flourish unattended.” The flowers are on a site adjacent to the former Todd Shipyard and future home of Ikea.

Now that we’re looking, Gowanus Lounge has also seen these flowers in Williamsburg, on North 11th Street. Clearly, these buttercups dig all the hipster Brooklyn nabes.

Central Park may have its coyote (did not survive) and the Bronx its deer (again, did not survive). And, Williamsburg may have its hipsters (who may not survive either, once thousands of luxury condo units go up). Gowanus Lounge is happy to note, however, that South Brooklyn–and particularly Park Slope–has raccoons. So many raccoons, in fact, that on many nights they can be seen cavorting on neighborhood streets, hanging out in the trees and being territorial on decks and in yards (of those that have them). One veterinarian on Park West who lets visiting dogs hang in the backyard is so afraid of a Yorkie entering into nasty dog-raccoon combat that he’s trying to trap them for relocation purposes. (The cool photo here is a raccoon in Kensington posted by Finster on flickr.) Raccoons in South Brooklyn are nothing new, but the population seems to be increasing. At is turns out, New York City has the state’s most dense concentration of raccoons. (Who knew?) Of course, no sooner do you get excited about the Brooklyn raccoons, than someone comes along and rains on your parade with stories about rabid raccoons. GL still likes them better than the usual wildlife–pigeons, squirrels, rats, etc.

You have to wonder how something like this passes muster. Comes news via Curbed of an 11-story building at 100 Luquer Street in Cobble Hill-Carroll Gardens now under construction. (Luquer Street last made news thanks to the rat infestation reported in the Daily News connected to construction of the building.)

The reader that brought this to Curbed’s attention wrote, in part:

It’s an eleven story building! How the flippin’ heck does anyone get permission to build this!! WTF is going on at a city planning level to get this through?

First it’s gentrification, and all those hipster kids. Then, the chain stores, putting the Mom and Pop stores out of business. Now this. Jees.

If they built this by the Gowanus I would say, bravo, its part of rejuvenating the area, and encouraging a new community of residents and businesses. But to put it up in a neighborhood were all the other buildings around are only four or five story’s – well that’s city planning at it’s worst.

GL, for one, is in awe. Since Williamsburg already has a Finger Building, how about we call it: the Flipping the Bird Building?

McCarren Pool Before the Clean Up, originally uploaded by rsguskind.

Since tickets for the July 29 Bloc Party show at McCarren Pool are on sale today, Gowanus Lounge thought this a good time to flash back in time (by a year). We’re not saying that McCarren Pool was better around this time last year when this photo was shot, before undergoing the $200,000 facelift that scored a concert contract for Ron Delsner Productions. McCarren Pool was no doubt at its best back in the days when it was a pool. We offer this as photographic evidence of what McCarren looked like a year ago. Oh, and one other thing: McCarren Pool even has its own logo as a concert venue, a graphic of its landmark entry arch.

The Fifth Avenue Fair is on Sunday, and even though Gowanus Lounge tires of street fairs by June–and especially of their, um, sameness–we dig this one. That’s because it is one of the fairs that retains some local flavor, with dozens of businesses from the nabe and Brooklyn setting up tables and stands.

(If you too have that “seen one, seen them all” feeling, it’s because many are produced by a handful of companies. Hence, the same assortment of sausage stands, mozareppa spots, sunglass vendors, etc.)

The photo here is from last year’s is from last year’s extravaganza.

Be there.

It’s been quite the week for Brooklyn Bridge Park, so Gowanus Lounge thought it appropriate to do a bit of a round-up. First, there was news that starchitect Robert A.M. Stern (master planner of Disney’s Celebration, Florida) has signed on as a consultant on park plans. Then, there was the lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club to stop the entire project that was neatly summarized by Gothamist, among many news reports. And, today, Metro reports on a session that a Stern associate had yesterday with the local Citizens Advisory Council. Said Paul Whalen, the Stern associate, of the design guidelines being produced for the many buildings that will be part of the development package : “It’s like looking at a table and deciding what the salt and pepper shakers look like.”

There are three developments planned for Brooklyn Bridge Park: A 17-story building with 130 units on John Street, 150 apartments and 225 hotel rooms in buildings that will be 6-10 stories, and 400 apartments at Atlantic Avenue in either two 20-story buildings or a 30-story building and a 14-story building.

The buildings are the way the park will be financed.

Looked around once forsaken Fourth Avenue between Atlantic Avenue and Ninth Street lately? Gowanus Lounge highly recommends it as a way of getting a sense of what an avenue in transition looks like. A walk down this stretch, which was once reserved for tire shops, warehouses, cab company offices, auto repair places and the like, revealsalmost a dozen sites that are in some stage of development. (Forget where you are, and there are so many blue-painted plywood construction walls that you might think you were in Williamsburg.)

The building boom is concentrated in the Gowanus-Park Slope stretch of the avenue. (Fourth Avenue–both sides–is usually claimed by Gowanus in most definitions of the nabe.) The projects range from the Leviev Boymelgreen apartment building (a rendering of which is pictured, above right) between Third and Fourth Streets and another residential midrise going up at Second Street (to the right) to the Con Edison development across the street and about a half-dozen sites recently cleared or in the process of demolition. (The south side of Second Street, between Fifth and Fourth Avenues–which is part of Park Slope–has been remade into an almost entirely new street in the last three years.)

Needless to say, the avenue was rezoned last year to permit development of up to 12 stories.

You know the tune: Ba-dink-da-dinkity-dink-da-dink. Ba-dink-da-dinkity-dink-da-dink. Ba-dink-da-dinkity-dink-da-dink. Ba-dink-da-dinkity-dink-da-dink. Etc. Etc. Etc.

(Ultimate Brooklyn Revenge Suggestion Number One: Bribe Mr. Softee to park for a minimum of two hours in front of the abode of someone you wish to make insane, say, a psychologically teetering colleague. Ba-dink-da-dinkity dink-da-dink.)

But, GL digresses. Our point was simply to show this photo of Mr. Softee trucks all lined up at their place of rest on Carroll Street, just east of the Carroll Street Bridge. Get there at the right time of day, when the Mr. Softees leave for their day of local Brooklyn fun, and you will see the Running of the Mr. Softee Trucks on Carroll Street.

Ba-dink-da-dinkity-dink-da-dink.

Want to see New York’s working waterfront from the water? Saturday is your chance, with tours presented by the Working Harbor Committee for Working Harbor Day. The boat tours start at 10:30 and depart from Pier 63 Maritime, which is at West 23rd Street in Chelsea. Tickets are $10 for adults and $6 for children. There are three different trips available that take in either Manhattan, Brooklyn or New Jersey and Staten Island. The tours are apparently quite popular, but you can reserve a spot online. (About 2,500 people apparently did this last year.)

The Brooklyn tours, which take in the waterfront from the Navy Yard to the Erie Basin (see the Ikea site from the water!) depart at 10:30, 1:30 and 2:30. (The photo above is one of GL’s of the Brooklyn Navy Yard.) You can check the site for the schedule for the other tours. (Hey, GL is Brooklyn-biased.)

It ain’t hot until someone officially deems it so, preferrably on paper. If that’s the case, Red Hook is smoking. First, there was last month’s Washington Post article that was distributed nationally. Today, the New York Post declares, “Red Hook is no longer the land of waterfront toughs and gunshots; there’s a different kind of boom to be heard in South Brooklyn.”

Sayth the Post:

Like Barry Bonds, Red Hook knows what it’s like to suffer from a bad reputation. Old New Yorkers remember the neighborhood from its reckless, rough-and-tumble youth; the days when the area was wedded to the waterfront and all the crime that goes along with it. Or they remember it as the home of New York’s first housing projects and all its kindred poverty. But unlike the abnormally muscled San Francisco Giants slugger, Red Hook is far more popular these days. Not just another blue-collar Brooklyn neighborhood – it’s a community of artists, antique stores, new developments, gourmet restaurants and, as of this week, a spanking new Fairway market. And last month royalty arrived when the Queen Mary 2 docked in Red Hook for the first time – a major coup for the waterfront.

The article noted property values that have doubled in the last two or three years and quoted one developer who gushed, “I feel this is the next Manhattan.” (A double edged sword, that.)

Of course, there are major issues working themselves out in Red Hook as we speak in the shadow of a fairly incoherent approach to planning, as witnessed by the ongoing competition of uses: residential and commerical gentrification, big box storeification and preservation of the working waterfront, to name a few. (Did we mention the traffic nightmare that Ikea will present or protecting public waterfront access?)

Gowanus Lounge awaits a transportation solution that will make Red Hook easier to reach, such as a trolley line. (NY Water Taxi service is great, but does little to make it easier for Brooklynites to get to Red Hook.) Then again, the B61 bus offers a very scenic and complete view of all of hipster Brooklyn.

Ah yes, now, thanks to the New York Observer, we have a “Brooklyn Civil War: It’s North vs. South, Ratner Against Ledger.”

Among the nuggets is this: “Brooklyn isn’t a united front. The North Brooklyn of do-it-yourself fashion and vinyl siding (Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick) just feels separate from brownstone South Brooklyn (from Fort Greene to Park Slope). South Brooklyn is rich and pretty; North is rougher-edged and moody.”

And this: “Park Slope bears the brunt of a lot of Brooklyn contempt….at this point, it’s fair to say that the easygoing nabes of Boerum and Cobble Hills are just as affiliated with the Slope, no matter what the early settlers of Smith Street might contend.”

And this bit about hipness from a development company official who is to hipness what the snake is to a mongoose: “No question about it—it’s hipper,” said Michael Brooks, 30, over the phone, of North Brooklyn. He’s a project manager with the Developers Group, the company that’s bringing high-rise condos to the McCarren Park area. “If there’s a hipness meter, Carroll Gardens is not on the same end of the scale as Williamsburg,” he continued. “There’s a lifestyle in Williamsburg. It’s become a place that people want to identify themselves with, being in a place that feels like everything is happening. It’s just a moment—there’s a moment in Williamsburg right now.”

But, GL’s absolute, best favorite is this bit of verbiage, which confirms our conviction that Gowanus is on the verge of big things: “I read on the Internet that this was the place to live if you couldn’t afford anything else … ,” said Jay Brandt, 24, standing outside another Williamsburg bar, the Royal Oak, on a recent Saturday night, smoking in a tight, striped sweater. He moved here 10 months ago from Minneapolis and works both at a hedge fund and the Chelsea restaurant Parish. “I heard it was a post-collegiate utopia.” But alas …. “I don’t like it,” Mr. Brandt said. “It’s insular and cliquey …. I’ve heard good things about Gowanus—is that how it’s pronounced? Oh, Gow-ah-nus ….”

The Red Hook Fairway opened as scheduled this morning and the breathless comments and rush of photos on flickr, like the ones to the right and below from a huge set posted by David Prince reminded Gowanus Lounge of how upscale food retailing deprived many in Brooklyn have been. (Actually, the response reminded GL of walking on the streets of West Berlin the day the Berlin Wall fell and seeing East Berliners break into tears at the site of supermarkets and, specifically, oranges.)

GL, is already planning the first shopping trip, maybe multi-tasking it with a visit to the BWAC show.

There are also excellent early flickr photo sets from callalillie (who notes the opening “almost brought tears to my eyes”) and scaredy_kat.

(Note to Whole Foods: Can you overcome the Gowanus toxic obstacles and get a move on? It will be great to cry over produce closer to home.)